“I do my best to make sure they’re safe,” she said. “But I won’t always be there to protect them. I don’t want them to live in fear. I don’t want to pass on the fear.”
But everyday events, like dropping her daughter off at camp, provoke enormous fear. “I’m up all night, thinking, ‘What’s going to happen to her? Is something happening to her right now?’ ”
We should never stop seeking safety and justice, doing everything in our power to protect ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbors, our fellow humans. But we have a choice how much of our lives we give over to fear.
Fear uses the most insistent, relentless, provocative words: what if, what if, what if? When fear comes like a panic storm, and your body shakes and your heart races and the trauma you already survived threatens to swallow you, take your own precious hand and say, “Thank you, fear, for wanting to protect me.” Then say, “That was then, this is now.” Say it over and over again. You already made it. Here you are. Wrap your arms around yourself and rub your own shoulders. “Attagirl,” you say. “Love you.”
You never know what’s coming from the outside. You can’t predict who might show up to cause harm—yell an insult, throw a punch, break a promise, betray your trust, drop a bomb, start a war. I wish I could tell you that tomorrow the world will be safe from cruelty and violence and prejudice, from rape and depravity and genocide. But that world may not ever come. We live in a world with danger, and so we live in a world with fear. Your safety isn’t guaranteed.
But fear and love don’t coexist. And fear doesn’t have to rule your life.
Releasing the fear starts with you.
When we’ve been hurt or betrayed, it isn’t easy to let go of the fear that we’ll be hurt again.
Fear’s favorite words are “I told you so.” I told you you’d regret it. I told you it was too risky. I told you it wouldn’t turn out well.
And we hate to disappoint our hunches.
We hold on to fear, thinking vigilance will protect us, but fear becomes a relentless cycle, a self-fulfilling prophecy. A better protection against suffering is to know how to love and forgive yourself, to be safe for yourself, to not punish yourself for the mistakes and hurt and pain that are inevitable parts of life.
This was Kathleen’s struggle when I spoke with her in the aftermath of her husband’s affair.
She’d been happily enjoying her twelfth year of marriage to a handsome, accomplished doctor, taking a pause in her career to focus on their young sons, when she got the phone call. A man she’d never heard of claimed to run an escort service and threatened to expose her husband’s affair with one of the escorts and ruin his career if she didn’t pay up. It was sordid and outlandish, the stuff of soap operas and nightmares. But when she confronted her husband, he said it was true. He’d engaged the services of an escort. The man who’d called Kathleen was her pimp.
Kathleen went into a state of shock. She shook uncontrollably, she couldn’t eat or sleep. Her world was upside down and inside out. How had she been so oblivious to the truth? She entered a state of perpetual vigilance, prodding her life for clues that would help her understand why her husband had cheated, and for evidence that he might be straying again.
But over time—and with lots of help from a marriage counselor—the infidelity became an opportunity for her and her husband to rediscover their marriage, to rekindle intimacy. As they regained stability, he surprised her by becoming more attentive and romantic. Their marriage felt more joyful. They hosted a giant Christmas party, their house full of light. On Valentine’s Day, her husband woke her before dawn and led her down the dark hall to the staircase bedecked in rose petals and twinkling tea lights. They sat in their robes together and cried. Sweetness and trust had returned to their relationship.
Little did she know he was weeks away from another destructive decision—the start of another affair with a young colleague—or that in a few months she would stumble on a passionate letter that he’d written to his lover.
Kathleen and I spoke two years after the devastating discovery that he’d betrayed her again. She chose to stay in the marriage, and once more they engaged in intensive couples therapy and rebuilt their relationship, from the ground up. She told me that in many ways their bond feels stronger than ever. Her husband is less walled off, less prone to edginess, more affectionate—he hugs and kisses and comforts her, checks in frequently, video calls her from work or dials out from his work phone so she knows he’s really where he says he is. He’s open about why he cheated again—“I was a powerful narcissist, trying to have it all,” he says—and speaks his heartfelt regret.
But Kathleen is still imprisoned by fear.
“I have the loving, attentive husband I’ve always wanted,” she said. “But I can’t accept it. I can’t believe it. I play the mind movies all day, reliving the past, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to cheat again. I know that I’m robbing myself of my own life. I know I need to learn to trust him again. I’m trying to stay in the present. But I can’t escape the fear. I can’t stop policing and monitoring him.”
When we’re living with a lot of doubt, we’re on the lookout for signs that will calm—or confirm!—our fears. But whatever we’re looking for on the outside, we need to address within.
“Maybe it’s not your husband that you’re doubting,” I said. “Maybe it’s you. I heard you say four times, ‘I can’t.’ ”
Her bright eyes filled with tears.
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit. So let’s work on dissolving that self-doubt.”
The prison of fear
